Exhibit A: This piece in today's paper, which puts forth the TSA's party line of "we're only trying to keep you safe," says that the only problem with what the TSA refers to as "enhanced pat-downs" (what the rest of us refer to as "groping") is that the TSA didn't handle the PR aspect of it with any skill.
So here is the New York Times, shilling for the TSA to persuade the sheeple to shut up and suck up.
First off, whenever a government agency refers to something as "enhanced", that is a euphemism for something very bad. "Enhanced interrogation" is a euphemism for torture, "enhanced pat-down" is a euphemism for a sexual assault.
Second, as Jill Tubman noted, much of what is going on at the airports is white people finding themselves being treated like Black men. In much of New York City, to be an African-American male and to walk down the street is to invite being frisked by the cops. The same thing happens in other cities.
Third, the TSA's quest for the utmost in security is at odds with the rest of the nation's conduct. The TSA will leave no testicle unfelt to "keep you safe", but we willingly accept risk for almost everything else. Speed-limit cameras unquestionably reduce speeding, but they are widely despised. Nobody seriously questions that helmet laws save lives, but then you see these birds:
The TSA's quest for total security on airliners is futile. They certainly aren't going to get there by paying a skosh over burger-flipping wages (they start at $12.85) and employing tactics that border on voodoo, since the TSA seems to think that a terrorist will have shifty eyes.
Of course, the TSA likes to gloss over one of the commonalities of both the Shoe Bomber and the Underwear Bomber: Both attacks originated overseas.
It is time to rethink how we do things for airline security. But the one suggestion of Congressman Mica, to turn it over to even lower-paid people, won't cut it.
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